Two Flavors of Tyranny

In American politics, there are two angles on any given issue: the Republican side and the Democrat side. Any dissenting or differing opinions are bottled up and shoved into one of the above categories, because as conventional wisdom would have it, either an idea is red or it is blue; either one thinks red bad, or one thinks blue bad. Those who disagree with both factions are quickly dismissed as socialist quacks or libertarian-leaning internet trolls.

However, one need not be a collectivist crusader or an anarcho-capitalist to notice that the two major parties bear only internal relevance. When viewed away from the American political context, the parties, it becomes evident, squabble over details, yet agree on major points; and although they fall on two sides of the so-called left-right spectrum, both of them assume big government and rely on its existence for debates to endure between them. In the end, the choice between Democrat and Republican is a choice between two flavors of tyranny.

Their one discrepancy begins with the thing that very few people are aware that they possess—namely, political worldview. Republicans and Democrats use the same means (in slightly varying amounts) to achieve radically different visions of national greatness. Republicans seek military strength and material prosperity for all, and Democrats are purportedly working towards ultimate social justice and safety for the masses; this roughly sumps up the distinction between the goals of fascism and socialism. The ends are at odds, but the means are identical.

Fascist and socialist states are related by blood, and telling them apart at a glance is often a challenge: both of them sport secret police forces, enormous militaries, starving populations, central economic planning, drastic shortages and surpluses because of that economic planning, relentless propaganda, mass executions of political opponents, usually a uniting prejudice against a race or culture, programs to indoctrinate youth, a disgusting disregard for the sanctity of life, party-worship and personality cults centering around leaders, uncontrollable inflation and draconian monetary restrictions, burdensome restrictions on the populace, and the list could go on for a while yet.

Interestingly enough, nearly every disagreement between the Republicans and the Democrats is a debate on the workings and minor details of running a preexisting mammoth-sized government.

In the realm of gun control, Republicans cling to licensing and background checks, while Democrats prefer to expunge all firearms from the population, ban all pointy objects, and regulate all choking hazards. Democrats wish to socialize healthcare entirely; Republicans only want to socialize it a bit. Republicans hope to “reform” public schools by decentralizing and cutting off a smidge of funding, and Democrats want to “reform” schools by expanding and throwing extra money at school districts everywhere.

The two parties are not opposites in any of these scenarios; indeed, they are merely on discriminable points of the tyranny gradient. One kind of tyranny is not distinguishable from another, and far left and far right are simply dissimilar names for the same brand of oppression.

The United States’ two dominating parties pretend to disagree on every issue that they can find to discuss, but—in reality—they only disagree on one issue: in what areas, to which degree, and for what purpose can the government control citizens?

Truth be told, ideas are not red or blue: they are good or bad. Both parties have stunning amounts of proposals that fit into the latter classification, and both parties present a type of tyranny that we should be unwilling to accept.